PAUL KLEE

Paul Klee, was a Swiss-born painter, printmaker and draughtsman. Known for his unique pictorial language and innovative teachings at the Bauhaus, Paul Klee had far-reaching influence on 20th-century modernism.

A child of two professional musicians, he was a classically taught and very accomplished, often practicing the violin as a warm-up for painting. He naturally saw analogies between music and visual art.

He challenged traditional boundaries separating writing and visual art by exploring a new expressive, and largely abstract or poetic language of pictorial symbols and signs. He has been variously associated with Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism, and Abstraction, but his 0ver 9000 works, are difficult to classify. He generally worked in isolation from his peers, and interpreted new art trends in his own way. He was inventive in his methods and technique, working in many different media—oil paint, watercolor, ink, pastel, etching, and others. He often combined them into one work. Klee greatly admired the art of children. He constantly experimented with artistic techniques and the expressive power of color, in the process often breaking traditional academic rules of painting. “Comedy is at the heart of Klee's work – from joyously splodgy lines to grotesqueries that poke fun at dictators. He loved to combat oppression with laughter.” Wrote critic, Philip Hensher .